Kanya Balakrishna

Kanya Balakrishna is a social entrepreneur, youth advocate, and the co-founder and CEO of The Future Project, a national youth empowerment organization dedicated to providing young people with coaching and support to navigate life and pursue their goals. The Future Project has trained and supported more than 50,000 students in communities across the country, helping them harness their passion and purpose to drive positive change.

Balakrishna's commitment to youth empowerment is informed by her personal experience as a first-generation immigrant who attended nearly a dozen schools during her upbringing. This background gave her insight into the importance of helping young people discover their ability to effect change.

Before founding The Future Project, Balakrishna built a career at the intersection of public health and communications. She served as chief speechwriter to Dr. Margaret Hamburg during Hamburg's tenure as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Balakrishna holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale College, where she studied anthropology, worked in the New Haven community, and served as managing editor of Yale Daily News. Her dedication to youth was further shaped by a decade spent teaching students at after-school learning centers in Memphis, started by her mother, an educator.

Under Balakrishna's leadership, The Future Project expanded into a national organization, with annual revenue growing from $4 million to $15 million. This rapid growth brought significant challenges, including a crisis that reduced the organization's staff from 115 to 10. Balakrishna has spoken openly about this period, introducing the concept of "the work twisties"—a term inspired by Simone Biles' Olympic experience—to describe moments when leaders lose their sense of direction. Her candid discussions about the challenges of scaling organizations and the "sacrifice trap" have resonated with founders and executives facing high-stakes leadership decisions.

Following this period of reinvention, The Future Project began offering virtual coaching to young people, leading to the development of Future Coach—a human-AI hybrid coaching system designed to support the organization's core mission with a more sustainable model. Future Coach, built on years of experience in schools and grounded in the science of purpose, provides 16- to 24-year-olds with access to human coaches enhanced by artificial intelligence, supporting them as they pursue meaningful goals.

Balakrishna has been recognized by the DRK Foundation, MAKERS, Glamour, and Generation Progress for her work. She has delivered keynote addresses at venues including TEDx Broadway and college diversity convocations. As a speaker on youth leadership, the future of work, education reform, and purpose-driven entrepreneurship, Balakrishna draws on her experience as an organizational leader and her insights into overcoming professional adversity.